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ORLANDO, Fla. — For years the Defense Department has been eyeing intellectual property rights for its weapons systems purchases. But as technology develops, the issue is becoming more “acute,” Mike Merritt, deputy technical director of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, said Nov. 28.

Following a long anticipated contract award for the Air Force’s new T-X trainer, the Boeing Co. is moving forward with a plan to reach full operational capability in 2034, a company executive said Nov. 27.
“Part of what we’ve been doing in these two months is familiarizing our customer with what we’ve already developed, what we already have, and now we go through the [engineering and manufacturing development] program over the next couple of years,” Randy Deidrick, Boeing’s ground-based training systems lead for the T-X program, told reporters during the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando, Florida.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking to develop alternative positioning, navigation and timing capabilities. Dave Tremper, a program manager at the agency’s strategic technology office, said relying solely on GPS provides users with a single point of failure.